


handle with care

by donutcats



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, and de rolo hc's, ep 68/69 spoilers, its mostly just cass and vex talking, there's a very brief flash of gil/jarett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutcats/pseuds/donutcats
Summary: “I can assure you, the talk you assume we’re having is not the same as the one I want to have.” Vex’s eyebrow arches once again, but Cassandra soldiers on. “I heard about, what was offered during the ritual. Especially your offering.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> thank you @critical role discord for giving me the inspiration to write this tbh

Cassandra asks one of the maids if they've seen Vex, because she sort of wants to talk to her. The maid has to ask another servant if they’ve seen her, because apparently she isn’t a part of the stealth twins for nothing. Finally, after three servants and one cook, she manages to follow the vague whereabouts until she finds the half elf. She’s standing outside on one of the ramparts that stretch between two parts of the castle, arms braced against the parapet as she stares off into the winding streets of the town laid out below.   
  
"Vex?" It's a soft call, as she tries not to startle her, but Vex half turns, already smiling. Ranger like perception. Cassandra should have known.   
  
"Hello Cassandra. Lovely day, isn't it?"   
  
Cassandra raises an eyebrow, sidling up, almost mirroring Vex’s position. "Are you being serious?"   
  
That causes Vex to chuckle, low and warm, eyes sweeping back to the buildings. "Well, I'm assuming it's lovely for a spring day in Whitestone."   
  
"There's too much of a bite in the air for it to be a proper spring day." She grouses, because honestly how could anyone consider this spring? They're right off the heels of winter, the trees are just starting to promise signs of life, and here Vex is, claiming _spring._ Ridiculous.

They lapse into silence, as Cassandra mulls over why she came out here to begin with, and Vex closes her eyes as the breeze ruffles her hair. Past the wall, Cassandra can see a guard walk by, and farther, in the courtyard, there's a flash of purple and gold and happiness.   
  
Gilmore, looking tired as always. Cassandra didn't know Gilmore before, when he was well rested and bubbling with excitement. She met him under duress, under the rule of dragons and chaos, and since the minute he stepped into Whitestone, the dark smudging under his eyes hasn't let up. Now though, she watches him smile, arms thrown wide in that way of his, as if he needs every bit of his body to contribute to whatever he's saying. Jarett walks beside him, not even a foot away, mouth curling into a smile of his own. Their shoulders bump, and Gilmore looks ready to vibrate out of his skin.   
  
The old bits of Gilmore seem to peek through now and then, the parts of his old self that she's only heard from friends lamenting, and if Cass has noticed a certain pattern with how his eyes light up and who he has as company, well that's none of her business.

The wind picks up, snapping the flags to attention, catching wayward strands of her hair. Things that are her business though, well those are plentiful. She’s only nineteen years old and yet, here she is, the Lord of property and people and _lives_. There is a council, she won’t deny that, but they continue to defer to her. As if they are a bunch of children that need to present her with their group project, ready for her approval. Nothing can change the fact that she is a de Rolo, unfortunately, and the title of Lord will always be on her shoulders. Her brother sure as hell won’t take up the mantel.

Speaking of. He’s another thing that’s very much her business. They didn’t get along too well as children, mostly because she was the youngest, and while there was only four years between them, Percy has always been Percy and has always seemed much older than he is. Fourteen years old and he was already on his way to being fluent in Celestial, glasses perched on his nose and a book or a tool in his hand. The only person Cassandra can remember that could actively put up with Percy was Vesper, and she suspects that was only because twins learn from before birth how not to strangle each other at the slightest irritation.

They might not have been the closest, before the Briarwood’s, but now they are all they have left. The last anchor to the bright moments in their past. So yes, while they don’t talk much even now, Percival is as much of her business as anything else in this Gods forsaken town.

“Vex’ahlia.” Her own voice startles her for a minute, so caught up in her own thoughts she almost forgot about where she was. By the look on Vex’s face, eyes blinking, Cassandra suspects they’re in the same slightly surprised boat. “I came to find you, actually. I’m out here for a reason.”  
  
“Oh?” Vex turns so she’s facing Cassandra, eyebrow and the corner of her mouth quirked. “What for?”   
  
She actually has no plan for this. Or well, she did, but then she got sucked into the undertow of nostalgia and when she punched her way out, every scrap of the words she had set up seem to fall away from her. Her fingers dig into the damp stone wall, and she tries to grasp for something, anything that won’t come off as snappish or, cold.   
  
“We both know it is no secret my brother, died.” Her voice trips, but she catches herself, the reminder of seeing Percy sitting in the library not but half an hour ago helping to settle the vague thrum of panic in her chest. “I may not have been there, but it was palpable in the temple, what transpired.”

Vex shifts, bracers scraping loudly as she moves. “Oh, so we’re having _that_ talk.”

“I can assure you, the talk you assume we’re having is not the same as the one I want to have.” Vex’s eyebrow arches once again, but Cassandra soldiers on. “I heard about, what was offered during the ritual. Especially _your_ offering.”

The buttons on her coat press sharply into her stomach as Cassandra puts all her weight against the shelf cut into the parapet, as she tries to snatch at the words before she makes a fool of herself. It reminds her of a lifetime ago, when she was five years old and her mother took the children apple picking. Julius was carrying a basket, happily making a game out of filling it. She remembers tugging away from the nursemaid, small hands grabbing at all the apples she could find, getting frustrated when they would roll just out of her reach.

Who would think words and apples could both make someone so upset in equal measure.

“Who told you?” Vex sounds wary, a bit suspicious, but then she curses, a bitten off sound. “ _Grog_ _!_ ”

Cassandra swallows, quick to defend. “He’s very happy, Vex. Proud too. I doubt he has it in him to keep such things secret.” Vex sighs at that, leaning down to rest her chin on her arm.

The silence stretches on, and when Cassandra finally looks, she can see Vex staring once again into the horizon, the feather’s she keeps behind her ear fluttering with the wind.

The apples tumbled into the basket, and Julius smiled so brightly at her. He was eleven at the time, but he was already a born leader, already able to make you feel proud of whatever menial task you accomplished. Cassandra didn’t gather the most apples, she was much too small. Vesper was the winner, with her long arms even at nine. Julius ruffled her hair as she pouted, telling her that she did the best she could, and that’s all that really matters.

“I love him, very much Vex. He is all I have left.” Her voice sounds far away, even to her ears, but she continues, holds onto the blurring memory of Julius’ smile and Oliver’s offer to share his apples. “If I was Percy, I would probably say something about having Whitestone. Having all these people that are put up in bedrooms throughout the castle. But, I am not my brother. I consider them all family, yes, just like I consider Vox Machina. But him,” Her voice catches, once again, the thought of him lying cold on a table hitting her out of nowhere. If she had been a minute earlier, she doesn’t want to know how she would have reacted.

“I don’t need to question if you love him as well, and I am so glad for that. To know he has someone when he’s so far away. I wouldn’t dare call this his home. It is mine, yes, but I believe his home is something more abstract.” Now, she can smile, it comes easy, less like trying to drag something out of tar. “Personally I think his sense of home is a person, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Vex is staring, brow furrowed just a bit, head tilted as she listens. Cassandra guesses the red around her eyes is leftover from yesterday. “Cass, I-”

She turns, facing Vex fully, hands clasped in front of her. “I ask you one thing, Vex’ahlia. One thing of you personally. Please, be gentle with him. I do not need tell you what he has been through. You have probably witnessed far more of his trauma’s then I could ever imagine, but. I feel it must be said.” The tears are threatening to break, and in this moment, while she asks for her brother’s heart to be handled with care, she feels every bit of her inexperienced age. “Do not let harm come to him, _please_.”

She doesn’t realize she’s begun to cry until there are arms around her, pulling her close, pressing her face into a shoulder, and then Vex is smoothing down her hair, voice quiet.

“His safety is all I have ever wanted, dear.”


End file.
